Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research Pitzer Faculty Scholarship 3-1-2005 Review: Bettina Wahrig and Werner Sohn, eds Zwischen Aufklärung, Policey und Verwaltung Zur Genese des Medizinalwesens, 1750-1850 (Wiesbaden, 2003) Andre Wakefield Pitzer College Recommended Citation Andrew Wakefield Review of Wahrig, Bettina and Werner Sohn (Editors), Zwischen Aufklärung, Policey, und Verwaltung Zur Genese des Medizinalwesens Isis, 96, (2005): 139-40 DOI: 10.1086/433027 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Pitzer Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont It has been accepted for inclusion in Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont For more information, please contact scholarship@cuc.claremont.edu BOOK REVIEWS—ISIS, 96 : (2005) were clearly bourgeois) It also mentions the shift of Pavlov’s concentration to brain research and “higher nervous activity.” As we await future installments of Todes’s grand Pavlov project, it is perhaps an appropriate time to ask some general questions about strategies in the history of science Is biography the most useful approach when the institution, which includes a large number of researchers over a long span of time, plays such an important role? Would not the framework of institutional history suffice, even to give a good account of the personal development and intellectual characteristics of a leader such as Pavlov? Whatever course he chooses, and he will probably have good reasons for the choices he makes, Todes should be commended for the many accomplishments of the work thus far In addition to the solidity of the presentation, the book is particularly useful for its attention to disciplinary boundaries (especially the border areas between physiology and medicine) and national boundaries (especially between emerging Russian science and the more established German and French centers)— key issues for understanding the growth of medical science and educational institutions at the turn of the twentieth century Todes also expounds on a few key Russian terms, not only to correct earlier translations but also to give us better insight into Pavlov’s patterns of thought, which tended to follow the anatomical-vivisectionist approach of Claude Bernard Except perhaps for B P Babkin’s Pavlov, A Biography (Chicago, 1949)—a personal memoir by someone who knew Pavlov mostly after 1904—there is currently nothing better than this volume for gaining an understanding of the work of this important scientist DAVID K ROBINSON Bettina Wahrig; Werner Sohn (Editors) Zwischen Aufklaărung, Policey, und Verwaltung Zur Genese des Medizinalwesens, 1750–1850 212 pp., index Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003 €59 E pluribus unum conjures images of dollar bills and thirteen colonies trying to form a young nation, but it might as well refer to all of those essay collections struggling to find some unity of theme and purpose Consider the poor editors Cramming conference papers into a unifying theme is a little like getting Massachusetts and South Carolina to agree about something Reviewers have it better, of course, but even we are supposed to consider these volumes as unified wholes, under the assumption that they are the- 139 matically and methodologically coherent This may not be such a good idea Sometimes the disjointedness that results from profound thematic discontinuity creates the most interesting moments in an essay collection And sometimes, even when editors their best to smooth the jagged edges of methodological diversity, signs of disharmony seep in around the edges This particular essay collection had its genesis in a March 2000 meeting at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbuăttel Speakers gathered there to discuss the birth of the medical system—regulations, faculties, collegiums, and so on dealing with health and medicine—between 1750 and 1850 The organizers aimed to take a wide view of the problem, assuming that the transformation of medicine and medical knowledge had to be understood within the broader contexts of enlightenment, police, and modern state administration The volume reflects these ambitions Some articles cover broad questions about police and administration; others address narrower issues, such as the periodical literature on medical police from 1770–1810 Taken as a whole, the volume offers a nice sampling of views about how to situate medicine within the changing matrix of police and administration between 1750 and 1850 Werner Sohn’s article, “From Policey to Administration,” looks at the transition from medical police to medical administration around 1800 Here the older ideal of “good police” gives way to newer notions of normalized administration and bureaucratic rationalization Sohn argues that police science (Policeywissenschaft), with its concern for welfare and happiness, spawned the discourse of “medical police” during the second half of the eighteenth century More specifically, he maintains that medical police became part of the discourse around population, as articulated by cameralists such as Johann von Justi and Josef von Sonnenfels All of this changed around the turn of the century, as authorities grappled with urbanization, industrialization, liberalism, and the victories of Napoleon Bettina Wahrig, Sohn’s coeditor, also discovers a radical break around 1800 She argues that this was the moment when physicians, having harnessed the state and police sciences for their own ends, now became objects of scrutiny themselves, as the rationalizing state turned its normalizing gaze upon them If you catch a strong whiff of Foucault in all of this, you’re not wrong It is fair to say that Foucault’s work determines the analytical framework for the whole volume But it is also clear that not everyone agrees The redoubtable 140 BOOK REVIEWS—ISIS, 96 : (2005) Mary Lindemann, for example, challenges the foundational assumptions of this Foucauldian approach, and she does it with Rankean panache “Wie ist es eigentlich gewesen?” (How was it really?) This is the question she poses at the outset Just imagine: German organizers in Wolfenbuăttel frame the entire discussion in terms of Foucault, and then an American scholar invokes Ranke Lindemann’s article is worth the price of admission In it, she offers us a small autobiography nested within a trenchant historiographical analysis She, too, we discover, was once enamored of sweeping analytical categories such as professionalization, modernization, and discipline But the sources eventually convinced her that the research questions framed by such categories were “not only wrong, but they were also ahistorical” (pp 198–199) This is an indictment of the whole volume, but it is also what makes the volume worth reading Still, it’s not all Foucault versus Ranke Thomas Broman’s article on state and consumer society, which critiques the tripartite analytical framework of professionalization-medicalization-enlightened absolutism, shows admirable clarity Jutta Nowosadtko’s article delightfully explores the everyday boundaries of professional competence In short, there is much of value tucked away in this little volume, thanks to the methodological and thematic diversity of its offerings ANDRE WAKEFIELD Paul C Winther Anglo-European Science and the Rhetoric of Empire: Malaria, Opium and British Rule in India, 1756–1895 xvi ם427 pp., tables, bibl., index Lanbam: Lexington Books, 2003 Most research on opium during the nineteenth century has focused either on Britain or China A good deal has been written on opium usage in Britain, as well as moral and medical attitudes towards the substance, and the history of AngloChinese political and economic relationships generally give a prominent place to opium and its wars Britain and China were primarily consumers during the century, and until late on, most of the drug came from India By the 1890s, more poppies were being grown in China and the Middle East, and the market share enjoyed by Indian producers was being challenged Paul C Winther’s decision to concentrate his research on India is thus to be applauded, as is his exposition of debates about the value of opium as a protective and possible cure for cases of malaria As he points out, the “malaria” di- agnosis during his period was vague, and included many fevers that were subsequently differentiated, on the basis of subtly different clinical courses and a variety of specific causative agents The malaria and opium nexus is consequently extremely tenuous, and nineteenthcentury judgments about the drug’s role in treating fevers were a heady mix of moral, economic, and psychological factors For readers like myself with a vested interest in his particular theme, Winther has much to offer He has read widely and offers full descriptions of a number of works relevant to the topic Almost half of the book is devoted to the evidence collected by the 1894 Royal Commission on Opium He shows how the seven volumes of evidence and conclusions were collected and analysed, concentrating especially on the key medical member of the Commission, Sir William Roberts, a prominent Manchester physician The Commission took evidence from a wide variety of witnesses, British as well as Indian, and they heard an equally wide variety of opinion, about the extent of opium use in India, as well as its medical value Given the Government of India’s need for the revenues from the drug, both as a source of export income and as a tidy profit from home sales (the Government controlled most production), the Committee’s recommendation that the opium trade be continued is hardly surprising Whether the Committee was convened simply to pacify the increasingly vocal activities of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade is another matter Winther implies that there was collusion and deliberate selection of testimony favourable to the economic interests of the Government of India The evidence, as presented here, is less compelling Roberts certainly interpreted the evidence with which he had been presented to conclude that the medical value of opium was such that a prohibition on its sale (and export) would be unjustified In addition, he drew on two earlier studies that purported to demonstrate the value of opium as an effective drug against malaria Using hindsight, it is easy for Winther to show that these clinical studies were rather inconclusive and faulty In his eagerness to condemn Roberts, Winther uses modern criteria of clinical evaluation, and at one point castigates Roberts for not being aware of Ronald Ross’s researches on the mode of transmission of malaria Given the fact that Roberts was writing two years before Ross published anything on the subject, this is historical hindsight with a vengeance Winther’s study is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Indian dimension of ... better than this volume for gaining an understanding of the work of this important scientist DAVID K ROBINSON Bettina Wahrig; Werner Sohn (Editors) Zwischen Aufklaărung, Policey, und Verwaltung... between physiology and medicine) and national boundaries (especially between emerging Russian science and the more established German and French centers)— key issues for understanding the growth... as moral and medical attitudes towards the substance, and the history of AngloChinese political and economic relationships generally give a prominent place to opium and its wars Britain and China